Meet QBO's New Navigation Bar

Last year we lost our Alternate Navigation Bar, which had been a part of Intuit labs. But this year, we've received a makeover of the Navigation Bar. In addition, Intuit recently has started rolling it out.

You may not have these feature changes yet, but they're definitely on their way to your QBO.

Because there's so much to see, let's not waste time on chatter. Let's just dive in and look at what's new.

First, let's look at the Navigation Bar itself, which apparently went to boot camp, lost the waste (transactions) and gained "the beef" in the form of Banking, Sales, Expenses and Accounting.

Sales

Sales - 01

As you can see above, Invoices are the very first tab in Sales. This is the "how" and "when" folks. The highlight of this feature is really the Invoice Status. You can see status details without opening the transaction.

From the Dashboard glance you can see if the Invoice has been Sent, Viewed, Paid and Deposited – "Oh Happy Dance."

But Invoices is not where the "How" leaves off. The All Sales tab contains both your invoices and sales receipts in a list that you can open for details.

The big convenience of this update consists in the fact that you no longer must open a customer to view all sales transactions.

The Customers tab enables you to explore the "who" – those individuals and companies that owe you money or who have paid you money.

Expenses

Expenses

The Expenses tab not only gives you an easy way to add your expenses, but all of the details of your expenses as well.

The Vendors tab allows you to setup new vendors and explore your vendor history.

Employees

Need to add payroll to your QuickBooks Online? This is the place to do that. How about creating paychecks? Yes, this is payroll central as well. You can even process those payroll taxes from this new Navigation Bar selection.

Reconcile

Quick and easy access to an essential feature those of us performing accounting, bookkeeping and advisory services frequently use.

The good news is that I’m no longer sad we lost our QBO labs alternative navigation bar. I like this new one better.

Our clients are going to be able to navigate (enter pun) their way around QBO easier with a better understanding of navigation bar options. I think it'll also make "over the phone" instructions a lot easier to give and follow as well.

A few notes to keep in mind:

New QBO users already are receiving the new navigation bar as part of their signup, but since this is an update, existing QBO users (as with prior updates) will receive these changes as they are rolled out over a series of releases. Not all users will see them at the same time, but now is the time for you to start making your clients aware the changes are on their way.

Insightful Accountant will cover a few of these changes in a little greater depth over the next month, and you can expect them to be features in our next QBO "Fireside Chat Quarterly Update" in early April.

There often are two paths to the same destination in QuickBooks Online and these navigation changes have not eliminated that. For example, the Chart of Accounts and Products & Services still are listed under the Gear Icon. We haven't lost those familiar options, even now there's a more convenient path to access them.

Comments (5)

QBO Navigation Improvements

I do like these changes. It takes fewer clicks to access important features, particularly the Chart of Accounts, Bank downloads, Bank Rules and Products and Services. I hope they never change the 'Quick Create'/ Plus sign - it is so clever that the '+' means add and it turns into an 'x' when you need to exit.

Leslie N Simmonsmore than 1 year ago

I'm liking the new Nav Bar now...

I originally didn't like the change because it hid Customers and Vendors but it has grown on me to the point where I now really like the new Nav Bar. I love how the Banking & Reconcile are easier to find and navigate to. Hopefully this will help keep the books cleaner on an ongoing basis...

Caleb L. Jenkins | Top Up-N-Comer ProAdvisormore than 1 year ago

FINALLY

Finally, relevant & understandable menu elements

Ross Beasleymore than 1 year ago

New Nav Bar

It has always puzzled me that access to bank feeds, the feature accessed more times per month than any other, by many users,was buried under a layer of menue items. I join you on the "happpy dance" floor.

Ann Leemore than 1 year ago

Merely cosmetic changes

These QBO changes are merely cosmetic. How about the Intuit developers spend some time on enhancing the feature-set and abilities of QBO instead of wasting resources to make it look pretty.